Chromebooks have been around for a while now. For the most part, they’ve been relegated to schools who need cheap laptop computers that can open a web browser and connect to the internet. For a long time, that’s really the only thing Chromebooks were good for. Luckily, web-based apps have evolved a lot over the past 25 years and we’ve got some really great functionality that can be accessed all via just a web browser.

Today, some of the more-expensive Chromebooks have added support for running Android apps as well as some Linux programs via a virtualized Crostini container. Chrome OS is, after all, based on a Linux kernel, but usually greatly dumbed-down from all of the other powerful capabilities of Linux. Those Chromebooks are in the $500+ price range though (here’s a list), which seems kind of ridiculous for something who’s main function is to open a web browser and load web pages. Why not just get a Windows or macOS powered computer at that point?

I recently bought a $99 refurbished HP Chromebook 11 with the intention of taking it apart and converting it to a Gallium OS Linux laptop. My teenage god daughter accidentally spilled water on her really nice HP convertible Windows 10 tablet/laptop PC and of course the warranty doesn’t cover that. So she also needed something for school. She refers to Chromebooks as “Jitterbug laptops” which is a reference to those overly basic mobile phones that only have 3 buttons so that you can only call 3 people. The Chromebooks she’s used at school are similarly limited in her mind, and I’d say she would be correct. The majority of Chromebooks can basically only run Google’s Chrome web browser. Gallium Linux, on the other hand, not only gives you the power of a real computer, but also provides some heightened capabilities for technological freedom.

• NVIDIA 440.58.01 Linux Driver Fixes Vulkan Game Crashes, New Extensions

  Not scheduled to go live until Monday but up this weekend is the NVIDIA 440.58.01 Linux beta driver that offers a few Vulkan updates.

  The NVIDIA 440.58.01 Linux driver fixes a regression that caused some Vulkan games to crash due to swapchain issues. Affected games include at least F1 2017, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and DiRT 4. This beta driver also fixes a visual glitching issue when falling out of page-flipping such as alt-tabbing on Linux.

• NVIDIA have a new Vulkan Beta driver out for Linux fixing some regressions

  NVIDIA continue being quick to advance their Vulkan drivers as today they released an update to their special Beta branch.

  440.58.01 is out which adds in support for two more Vulkan extensions with VK_KHR_shader_non_semantic_info and VK_EXT_tooling_info which sounds quite useful to help developers track down what might be causing an error.

  For games this release fixes up a Vulkan swapchain recreation crash with F1 2017, Rise of the Tomb Raider and DiRT 4. NVIDIA also solved an issue with visual glitching of Vulkan applications when "falling out of flipping" with an example being when you alt+tab, however they're still investigating an issue to do with this on the GNOME desktop.

The router runs a customized version of OpenWrt called “MiWiFi ROM”, and can be configured via a web interface, or Mi Wi-Fi mobile app for Android or iOS.

• Integrating IBM Z and LinuxONE into the Red Hat OpenShift developer ecosystem

  My role at IBM is to make sure that we’re equipping developers with the tools and resources you need, along with the selection and guard rails you prefer, to help you focus your efforts entirely on innovation. Security is key to unlocking the true value of the cloud, and we want that to be one less thing you have to worry about when you’re building high-performance solutions. To that end, this week we announced a major milestone furthering Kubernetes support for Linux on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE: The Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform for Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE is now generally available.

• March 5 webinar: Introducing Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z

  Organizations aim to innovate faster and deploy applications more efficiently through cloud-native development — and they expect these applications to protect their data, scale smoothly, and be always available. Now you can meet all of these expectations by combining the leading container and Kubernetes application platform with the leading enterprise computing platform: Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Z.

  Join the upcoming webinar on March 5 to discover what happens when cloud native meets enterprise computing. You’ll learn how the agility of OpenShift, the security and scalability of IBM Z, and the containerized software of IBM Cloud Paks enable business innovation through cloud-native applications on mission-critical IT infrastructure.

• IBM and Red Hat bring OpenShift to IBM Z and LinuxONE

  One of the things we often assume with the Red Hat OpenShift platform, and with Kubernetes in general, is that our users have computing needs that always fit inside a standard cloud node. While this is definitely the case for most cloud-based applications, there are plenty of non-JavaScript-and-Redis style applications out there that still need to move into the cloud. Some enterprise applications were written before the cloud existed, and still others were created before JavaScript, C#, and Python even existed. Older systems written in languages, like PL/I and COBOL, can also benefit from the move to cloud, and from the use of containers, they just need a little extra attention to make the transition. Sometimes, they might need more specifically tailored environments than are available in the commodity-hardware-based clouds.

  Or maybe, those systems need to also run extremely large, mission-critical databases, like IBM DB2. In order to unlock the true potential of a multi-cloud compute environment, that cloud software needs to run on a diverse array of hardware similar to what is already in place in some of the world’s largest enterprises and governments offices. Spreading cloud capabilities into these larger systems enables containers to exist in the same environment as the company’s central database, and to embrace and modernize those older applications that may still run the most the basic aspects of a business’ day-to-day operations.